All Is Not Lost
by ArtAddiction2379
Summary: Will is very much in love with Tessa but is even more afraid of getting hurt by getting too close to her. However, when something happens to Tessa, Will cannot simply stand by and lose the girl he loves. TessaxWill  obviously . Oneshot.


**Hey, so this is my first fanfic. I'd love some criticism about it, but please, don't just insult it. Constructive criticism only please! This is a oneshot unless the general consensus is that I should add to it.**

**Please note: All characters belong to Cassandra Clare, obviously not me. Also, you will notice that I used a couple lines straight from the book, which I also don't own (shocker, I know).**

Tess had a certain way of looking at Will that he never could learn to expect. He was used to people barely looking at him at all, and when they never seemed to look very hard. Different people had different looks for him, like Charlotte and the way she would look at him with a mixture of familial affection and pure exasperation. Jem would look at him much the same, but perhaps with slightly less of the annoyance. Gabriel Lightwood and his kin would his with nothing but contempt. All of them didn't really look at him though. They looked at who they thought of him as. Tessa was different though. She didn't look at what she expected to see. Tess looked at him, looked _through_ him, and tried to see what was really there.

She couldn't quite see it though. He'd built walls so thick around himself that no one could see through them completely. The only time he'd let them down was when he was sure there was no one around to see through them. At the moment, he'd abandoned the façade. When he was so deep in the library at the Institute he was never found, which was exactly why he didn't notice when Tessa stepped up behind him.

"Will, you've been staring at the same page for nearly thirty minutes. I must say, I had never imagined that Will Herondale could ever be so thoroughly distracted. Usually, you don't miss a thing." Tessa spoke up, barely keeping a giggle out of her voice at first, and barely masking annoyance at the end. Within an instant, Will put his walls back up.

"Who says I was distracted?" he drawled putting on an air of disinterest. "Perhaps I was simply practicing a pose for a portrait painter. I must earn my pocket money somehow. Charlotte isn't fond of supplying me with money and gin does cost." They hadn't really interacted since the night on the roof. He welcomed her words, her voice, even relished it, but he had to keep up the image that he was as cold as he wished he could be. If he could be cold, then he wouldn't have to feel all the burning emotions he felt every day, especially the fiery passion that flooded his body every time the light hit Tessa's face just so or that funny wee smirk that would slip onto her face. He didn't mind that feeling, but he knew one day he would curse himself for feeling it.

Tessa merely rolled her eyes in a most decidedly un-ladylike fashion at his comment. "You know, if you keep indulging like that, you'll just end up drinking yourself to death."

_If only_, he thought but all he would never say it. Instead he simply let loose another of his signature quips. "Bah. I'll never allow myself to die before ensuring that I have tormented that idiot Gabriel as much as is physically possible." Will chanced a look at her just as her skirts swished when she turned. He thought that maybe if she wasn't looking back at him his resolve not to draw her in to him and spend endless hours just taking in the scent of her. He hadn't expected a real smile on her face, not just her smirk. That sweet smile was enough to chip away almost all of it though. After a sharp intake of breath, he simply closed his eyes to regain his composure. Will had never thought someone could have that effect on him ever, but Tessa did every day.

Late that night, Will lay awake even though everyone else had fallen asleep hours ago. His mind was filled with thoughts of Tessa and they wouldn't let him sleep. Every moment he spent with her played in his head. Living in those moments was Will's true indulgence and Tessa was right. That indulgence would end him one day. For the time being though, he simply reveled in it. In his head, he would trace her pale lips and memorize the shape of them. If only he could really touch them, really feel her skin. It looked so soft…

Out of nowhere, Will heard footsteps thundering down the hall. Quickly, he sat up and pushed the thoughts of Tessa to the back of his mind to revisit later. Just as he set his feet on the ground, Jem burst in, his eyes wild. Will's eyes flew open, instantly afraid that he was about to collapse so far from his medicine.

"Jem! Are you-?"

"I'm fine, Will. It's not me. It's Tessa. She's missing. I went to her room to give her a book and her bed was empty and still made. She never slept in it." Cold dread stole into his body. He'd had no time to steel himself against the news and for a moment he knew Jem could see everything he was feeling. There was a faint look of surprise on the pale boy's face, his mouth slightly open. Annoyed with himself, Will turned away from his friend and mentally scolded himself for being so careless. "Will…"

"We have to find her."

"Well yes, I thought that was obvious," Jem said with an uneasy sort of sarcasm, obviously trying, but failing to conceal that he'd noticed Will's momentary lapse in his rock hard façade. But Will had no patience for sarcasm at that moment though.

"I mean we have to find her _now._" Pulling on his boots, he hobbled over to his wardrobe and yanked out his gear.

"Will, slow down a little bit."

"I will NOT! This is _Tessa_! We have to-,"

"William!" he froze for a moment. "Think for one bloody minute! You can't get into your gear if your boots are already on." _Stupid,_ he thought. _Now I look like a fool. Thanks Tess. _He couldn't really blame her for it though. It wasn't her fault. She didn't even know the effect she had on him or on anyone. Even though that obliviousness was infuriating on occasion, it was also strangely endearing. Right now he was mostly just cursing the way it affected him and clouded his head.

Once he managed to sort out his clothing, he bolted out of the institute, Jem trailing farther behind. Within a few moments however, he'd caught up with Will.

"What are you doing, James?"

"You didn't really think I'd let you go after Tessa without your _parabati_, did you?" he said with an almost light tone of voice. "I took my medicine. I can help you." He had a point, though Will hated to admit it. "Where do you think she went?"

"Where does she even know in London besides the Institute?" Will honestly wasn't sure. His head was still filled with worry for Tessa, for the girl he-… well, the girl he felt for.

"The Dark house, though I strongly doubt she'd go there. And Hyde Park. Jessie took her there once."

"Much more likely of a place for her to go to. She'd forever complain that there is not enough green in London."

"She is right about that, you know." Will simply ignored the comment and put all of his energy into making his way to Hyde Park, wasting none on speaking. Jem followed his lead.

They made surprisingly good time getting to the park, but it was still not fast enough. He immediately called to Jem who had fallen a few steps behind. "You head over that way. If we're looking in different places, we'll find her faster."

"There will be no need for that," said a high, clear voice only a short distance away. The boys turned and saw a thin, feminine figure robed in a black garment that draped over her in a most flattering manner. Her skin was pale, but her eyes and hair were as dark as her clothes. She had not been there only moments ago, Will was sure. With her stood a girl that Will would have recognized anywhere.

Tessa.

But it was not quite Tessa. The clarity in her eyes was gone and they were no longer their pale grey. They had darkened to the point where they appeared to be the same color as the smoke stained sky above them.

"What have you done to her?" It was Jem who asked it, not Will, though he'd taken the thought straight from his head.

"I have not hurt her in any way. All I have done is brought her back to the family she deserves to have. I have brought her back to those like her," the woman said with no malice in her voice, but a sort of amusement that unnerved Will.

"I am with my family now," Tessa said. All the life was gone from her voice. Seeing and hearing her like that made every bit of Will that cared for her die a little as well, which really was every single fiber of his being. "This is where I ought to be. This is where I will stay."

"For eternity, my dear little girl?" the women said, looking at Tessa with some sick parody of motherly affection in her eyes.

"Yes, my Lady. For eternity," Tessa said gazing back up at her like a child might.

_I have lost everything._

"Who are you?" Will growled. If this woman planned to take his Tess away, he had no reason to even play at formalities and pleasantries. There was no room for sarcasm now. He needed to get Tessa back to her true home. Back at the Institute.

"I am someone who can give her answers to the questions she so desperately needs answers to."

"My Lady will give me what I want. She will give me what I need." Each time Tessa spoke it was weak, like an echo of something that hadn't been spoken.

_Lost everything._

Will turned to Jem in the hopes that he would be of some help, but Jem was far too busy being shocked. Shocked and disgusted, judging by the look on his face. Everything was all wrong. Tessa was meant to be with her true family, with Will.

_Everything_.

_But I will get it back_.

"Tess…" He let his anguish leak into his voice and let his pain show in his eyes trying desperately to catch her eyes and praying to the Angel that something would get her to come round. She turned to him as soon as he called her Tess. All of a sudden the clarity came back to her eyes but confusion came with it. The moment he saw the gears in her head working as they always did his heart leaped back to life again allowing him to think like himself again. He could breathe again.

"You know what, _my lady_?"Will said, suddenly all mocking pomp and circumstance squeezing as much venom into the last two words as possible. "I think your 'little girl' has got something to say to you." She looked down to Tessa at which point the girl promptly whipped her hand across the woman's cheek. The woman was shocked for a moment and in that moment, Tessa ran toward Jem. Will was upon the woman in a flash, his hand around her neck.

"_Never_ come near my Tess again," he hissed so only she could hear. The woman only laughed and melted away into shadow.

Will turned to his brother in arms and the one girl in the world he truly cared for. Jem was beginning to regain his composure and Tessa was clearly just trying to work out just what was going on. The boys exchanged looks; Jem's seeming to say "look after her". Will pretended to look annoyed but Jem just shot him a look that screamed "we both know you want to". And so Will nodded and Jem nudged Tessa in Will's direction before he began to walk away.

"Will! Will, what happened?" Tessa said, her voice bordering on hysterical as she rushed over to him. She fell into his chest and he held her there, savoring the way that she fit perfectly into his arms.

"It doesn't matter…" he whispered into her ear while stroking her back. Tessa pulled back and gave him a quizzical look mixed with a touch of annoyance.

"Doesn't matter? I just ended up in Hyde Park with no memory of how I got there or anything that happened before when-… when you called me…"

"Tess…" he breathed, tasting the sweet name as it rolled off his tongue. "I don't mean it doesn't matter… I just mean there are other things that matter more…" She raised an eyebrow, clearly questioning. "What matters most is-…" Eloquent Will Herondale stumbled over his words. "What matters is that I love you." Tessa's eyes widened in surprised with something like fear at the center of them. It killed me to see her so scared on my account, but it was what I deserved after the roof. "I don't mean that I lust after you or simply admire you, Miss Tessa Grey," he clarified in a gentler voice than even he himself had ever heard him use. "I mean that I love you. I truly love _everything _about you."

Will could tell she was about to question it, about to say something to convince herself that he didn't really mean it, but he cut her off before she could with a kiss. Not a harsh kiss that was all tugging and fire like their past two, but a feather-light kiss that was there just enough to occupy her lips. He cradled her in his arms and kept his lips so close to hers for more time than he kept track of. They could have been standing there for hours, but he didn't care. As long as she was in his arms, everything was as perfect as he ever could have hoped for them to be. Only one small thing could possibly make it any better. As if Tessa was reading his mind, she spoke into the millimeter of space between them.

"I love you too. More than you can fathom, Will." And she was right. Will had never been good at accepting when someone care very much for him. But for Tessa, he supposed he could grow accustomed to it.

**Soooo, what did ya think? How'd I do? Please comment!**


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